The use that I wish to make of these words
is at variance with their traditional uses as stipulated in dictionary
definitions and in much philosophical discourse. Although my use is
unconventional, I believe it to eliminate some of the confusion that arises in
discussions about experience. My use of these words will therefore require some
explanation.

Mait Edey writes in his paper Subject
and Object 1 that:

For purposes of this discussion, let the term 'object'
refer to anything anyone might be aware of or pay attention to. The term
refers, then, not only to 'physical' objects, including whatever material
processes, states, or conditions one might discriminate, but also to such
'mental' or immaterial entities or processes as pains, sensations, memories,
images, dreams and daydreams, emotions, thoughts, plans, numbers, concepts,
moods, desires and so on. Whatever we may think about their ontological or epistemological
status in other respects, I hope we can agree at least that any of these may be
objects of attention or pass in and out of awareness.

The field of experience is comprised of
such "objects", which fall into categories with one such category
being that of “people”. The world of objects comprising the field of experience
gives an appearance that is consistent with the perspective taken by an entity that
is itself embedded in that world, specifically an entity that is conceived to
be a member of the category of “people”, and moreover a member that is unique
amongst the members of that category inasmuch as it is a conceptual
member rather than a perceptual member. This unique member of the
category of “people” will be referred to as the “self-as-person”.

Some of the constituents of the field of
experience (e.g. trees) are evident to all people that are in a position to
observe them, as is indicated by their behaviour - e.g. two or more
people looking at the same tree will normally agree that they are looking at a
tree (even when one of those individuals is the conceived self-as-person). This
particular set of constituents (comprised not only of people but also of all of
the other objects that are evident to all people in a position to observe them,
along with their relationships to each other) constitute what is conventionally
referred to as the “objective world”, and this convention will be adhered to
for the purpose of this discussion. Given Mait Edey's description of the word
"object" as outlined above, the word "objective" can no
longer be considered a derivative. In an attempt to adhere to the more
intuitively obvious use of these words I will reserve the word
"object" for those constituents of the field of experience that
comprise the objective world.

The objective world, then, is the world
with which people are acquainted by virtue of those of their sense organs that
are directed towards their immediate environment, and in the case of the
conceptual self-as-person, the world that appears as that category of experiences
conventionally referred to as “external sense data”. (I qualify these latter
experiences as “external” only to distinguish them from those experiences
associated with “internal” senses like proprioception, the feelings of thirst
and hunger, etc.) Data acquired through the external sense organs are described
as “empirical”, and it is by virtue of the common form of external sense
organs amongst members of our species that aspects of the objective world may
be considered “shared”or “public”. For this reason the phrases
“objective aspects of experience” and “empirical data of experience” will be
treated as synonymous for the purpose of this discussion.

Some of the constituents of the field of
experience (e.g. pain, hunger, etc.) are not parts of the objective
world unless divulged via some kind of objective behaviour such as language,
pain behaviour, etc. Such constituents relate only to the conceived
self-as-person, and comprise what is conventionally referred to as the
“subjective world”. To continue with the use of words as stipulated above, subjective
experiences are non-empirical. On these definitions, and at variance
with common use, the terms “objective” and “subjective” identify certain
categories into which the constituents of the field of experience fall.